Treat others with basic decency. No personal attacks, hate-speech, flaming, baiting, trolling, witch-hunting, or unsubstantiated accusations. Threats of violence will result in a ban. More Info.

Do not post users' personal information.

Users who violate this rule will be banned on sight. Witch-hunting and giving out private personal details of other people can result in unexpected and potentially serious consequences for the individual targeted. More Info.

Vote based on quality, not opinion.

Political discussion requires varied opinions. Well written and interesting content can be worthwhile, even if you disagree with it. Downvote only if you think a comment/post does not contribute to the thread it is posted in or if it is off-topic in /r/politics. More Info.

Do not manipulate comments and posts via group voting.

Manipulating comments and posts via group voting is against reddit TOS. More Info.

Use "no participation" links when linking to other subreddits.

Please use np.reddit.com links if you wish to link threads found on /r/politics to an outside subreddit. More Info.

Your title should be comprised only of the copied and pasted headline of the article and/or exact quotes. The selection of quotes should reflect the article as a whole. More Info.

Submissions must be an original source.

An article must contain significant analysis and original content--not just a few links of text among chunks of copy and pasted material. Content is considered rehosted when a publication takes the majority of their content from another website and reposts it in order to get the traffic and collect ad revenue. More Info.

Spam is bad!

If 33% or more of your submissions are from a single website, you will be banned as a spammer. More Info.

The ALL CAPS and 'Breaking' rule is applied even when the actual title of the article is in all caps or contains the word 'Breaking'. This rule may be applied to other single word declarative and/or sensational expressions, such as 'EXCLUSIVE:' or 'HOT:'. More Info.

Self-Posts are allowed on Saturdays.

Self posts must adhere to our on topic statement.. Meta posts (posts about /r/Politics and not the topic of politics) are not allowed. Please message the mods with your feedback about the subreddit. More Info.

That's only because the WBC protests the funerals of soldiers, while the KKK is "pro-troops". The KKK is still very bigoted, and does NOT support equality for gay people or anyone who isn't White European.

I would have had no interest in the scandal at all if it wasn't for Carlos Danger. This is a man who really took his game to the next level. His dick pic sexting slut game. You gotta admire a person who has found their calling.

The problem here is all these folks are nothing more than self-serving attention whores. They will happily say things like this when they need to get their names in the headlines in order to make themselves money.

And why doesn't the GOP have an answer to Obamacare? Because it's their fucking plan from the 90's. They're only against it because Obama was the one to push it through. If it was one of their own, they'd be having a bukkake party right now on it.

From a purely strategic standpoint it makes sense. Republicans are going to have to do at least a moderate swing back to center due to the backlash from senate stagnation being put on them. Newt's just trying to get in front of the pivot.

The next couple of election cycles, when the tea partiers are up for re-election, should prove pretty interesting.

Problem is that most of the tea-partiers are in Gerrymandered districts. Throw in the fact that, in all honesty, they're actually doing EXACTLY what they were elected to do (stop Obama at all costs), and I think their re-election bids aren't as troubled as you'd think as someone who didn't vote for them in the first place.

As Someone who lives part time I'm one of those districts, you are exactly right. Every week at church and in town there are positions for the state to withdraw from obamacare etc. Those officials will be reelected.

The real issue is A) Gerrymandering and B) Our Political Primary process.

Gerrymandering ensures that a Republican will take that seat, and the political primary process is so closed that all you really need to do to win that seat is not to appeal to the general populous, but to appeal very well to the sort of people that vote in Republican primaries, which tend to be the very 'conservative' hyper-partisan 'base.' The house isn't being rescued from the Tea Party until the entire system is reworked or the entire movement breathes its last. The fact that all they accomplish while in office is passing bills that will never become law and blocking any bill that might is irrelevant if all the voters back home care about is that the other side doesn't get THEIR way either.

political primary process is so closed that all you really need to do to win that seat is not to appeal to the general populous, but to appeal very well to the sort of people that vote in Republican primaries

That's the people's own fault though. At most all you have to do is register republican or democrat to vote in the primaries which is very easy to do, and for many states you don't have to even do that.

It's not like registering republican or democrat is signing your life away or anything. It just puts your address on a few mailing lists. Just don't give them a spam email address or no email address at all and you'll be able to vote in the primaries, which is honestly as important as the election itself.

No, that isn't good enough to fix gerrymandering, which manipulates the legislators and districts artificially to serve the party. It's possible, thanks to gerrymandering, for a state with their population split evenly down party lines to wind up with a predominately republican or democrat legislature.

Florida is a great example of it. Every presidential election has been pretty close for the state, yet the legislature is predominately republican.

I don't disagree, but those districts don't perform in a vacuum. I'm pretty new to the strategy side of politics, so this might all be off completely, but it seems like for all the good they do in their district they also polarize other volatile districts. The fact that they are up for re-election is just fodder for the larger campaign.

Like I said, I'm new to this, but I'd wager this marijuana legalization is a push towards a running platform for the democratic party during the next couple of cycles, while the republican party will continue to experiment with slightly more liberal, and more 'hit or miss', policy platforms.

They don't care about those districts. The power is in the house. The house only has to convince the district, the district believes that working with Obama is supporting terrorist and raping small puppies. Queue the race to be the craziest. This is the trap they are in. To get on the ballot you have to show you super republican and sound crazy, sound crazy and you only can win a district but nothing national or state wide, like Pres, or senate.

Gingrich is sleazy as shit, but most of the time, the guy keeps it real and says it like it is. Sometimes his opinions are idiotic, but the guy has more balls and more realistic goals than all his party combined.

I would flip your comment around. He is occasionally very frank and honest. Most of the time he is just an egotistical ass with the same perspective as the rest of the GOP. He is constantly trying to figure out how he can take the same tired GOP ideas and make them seem innovative. Once in awhile he sort of breaks rank, but he always quickly returns. Like here, he's not saying that Obamacare is good -- only that they need to make up some alternative in order to sound positive (even though it would be fake).

But even then, as stupid as having a base on the moon may sound, thats the kind of talk we should be discussing to drive the world into the next era of science. More than likely, the guy wouldn't do shit in office but his moon remarks really aren't as crazy as some make it seem.

It's just that the political spectrum has shifted so far to the right, nobody notices what's actually happening here.

This is a HUGE problem in the US.

And US citizens don't seem to understand this.

The positions that are called "biased leftist" or "straight-out socialism" in the US would be called "far right" and "social darwinist" in other countries.

The left in the US is further to the right of the political spectrum than the most rightist parties in Germany (like the German republicans who are currently in power or even the fucking neonazis).

Americans also seem to be indoctrinated into a mindset that says that a "reasonable and balanced" mindset is one that considers both left and right positions and settles somewhere in the middle. It isn't.

The US population seems to have fallen completely for an increase of the Overton Window. They don't seem to understand the ridiculous amount of propaganda they are subjected to.

It's not just a US problem we're getting the same thing in Australia to as lightly lesser degree, but it's happening. A lot of it has to do with Murdoch using his ~70% media ownership to pretty blatant push his own agenda.

Yep. Ironically, it's the "bubble" fostered by right-wing radio and Fox News (Murdoch-owned, obviously) that is rallying all of the American batshit citizens into voting for these neofascist Congressmen.

To be fair, they did come up with something. It was the ACA. Then the Kenyan usurper had the audacity to support the Republican plan, so the GOP had to resort to their fall-back healthcare plan, "Just fucking die already."

But... But... Grover Norquist told me that the plan was ONLY supported by the Heritage Foundation and Bob Dole (who isn't a real Republican anyway), and no TRUE Scotsman would ever support such a thing!

If you want to encourage real competition, end the Certificate-of-Need laws. It's a scam. It's such a transparent scam that it is exactly counter to all supply and demand logic taught in every first semester econ program.

The idea that hospitals will be cheaper if they can keep all the beds full is sheer folly. That's like saying hotel rooms would be cheaper if there was only one hotel in town.

The purpose of regulation is to stop wrong-doing, so anyone opposed to it on principle looks suspicious.

If half as much effort was put into shaming those who did wrong (so that less regulation would be NEEDED) as trying to end regulation, the R position on it might be considered merely misguided instead of openly working to help corporations commit fraud or endanger lives for the chance to save a few bucks here or there.

As it is, so many Republicans won't even shake their heads in the direction of the Texas fertilizer plant. No matter how egregious the offense, the willfully-negligent business is always in the right!

I bet Hillary doesn't touch healthcare with ten foot pole if she's elected. Not after the crap she went through in the 90s and then the crap Obama has gone through with the ACA. In fact, the fact it passed is a minor miracle considering the push back we've seen every time presidents have tried to reform our healthcare system.

He's a purely self-serving attention whore who will say anything if it will get him attention, and thus money. He knows exactly what he's doing, and that simply makes his usual vile bullshit all that much more repugnant.

I've been asking this of my more conservative friends/family members for a while now. If you are intent on getting rid of the ACA, what are you going to replace it with? You can't just poof us back in time to before the law was passed. Unfortunately I don't get any answers other than Obama is a Facist Muslim and that I must really love serving my black master. Sad thing is, I'm a fairly right leaning independent, but I might as well be a flaming liberal in my state.

Let's just be clear on what "interstate competition" actually means. Currently, each state gets to regulate insurance in that state. If you live in a state with a government that vaguely serves its citizens (as opposed to being a tool of wealthy/corporate interests), then they set minimum standards for what qualifies as "health insurance" and keeps some watch on the practices of insurance companies that operate in that state.

What Republicans propose (under the Orwellian title of "interstate competition") is to allow a company operating in one state to offer insurance to customers in other states, but operating under the laws of the company's home state. In other words, insurance companies pick a state and buy it's legislature. Their pet lawmakers then write that state's laws to be whatever they want. They create a very, very low lowest denominator to operate under nationally. The market for health insurance would rush very quickly down hill, and no matter where you live in the US, you would be stuck having to buy insurance under that state's non-regulation.

You know how credit card policies and interest rates are out of control? Yeah, that's because credit card companies operate under this kind of "home state's laws" system.

Pretty fucking ironic that when a state wants to do some crazy racist stuff, then Republicans love to cheer on "states' rights", but when insurance companies want to get around the laws of responsible states, they are quick to want a federal law that would override the ability of a state to protect its citizens from being screwed over.

More like the all-credit-card-companies-are-from-South-Dakota model. Once the Supreme Court ruled that credit card rates could be governed by the issuer's state rather than the holder's state, Citibank moved its headquarters from New York to South Dakota, which has no usury laws.

You can bet your life that at least one of the 50 states has health insurance laws so unconscionable that every single insurer will have "relocated" there in a matter of months. That, or they'll let the other 49 states compete to be even worse, to entice the insurance companies there instead.

I didn't fully understand what was meant by single payer. After researching it a bit I found out that it is entirely possible for a single payer system and private insurance to coexist, so you could possibly get the best of both worlds.

So, in this system, would it be the mandate that insurance companies have to offer at least X services for at most Y money? Because I see this fostering actual competative services, afflac gives X plus an extra annual checkup, blue cross gives X but for Y minus 10 percent.

It would mean that insurance would no longer be necessary. A basic standard of healthcare would be paid for by the government (the single payer). If you wanted services above that you could have insurance to pay for it, or pay for it yourself.

I just know that in some of the socialized medicine countries, everyone is covered exactly the same. However, if you feel that you want more choice, or extra-special doctors, you can pay for it yourself (or get your "private insurance") and be on your merry way.

You want that non-emergency surgery sooner than 3 months, you can if you can pay up. Or wait and get it covered for nothing (beyond your taxes). Either way, you still get it, just not as soon as you'd "like it".

In this case, it would bring expanded coverage as well as a level of competition. Really, it's introducing free market principles on top of the somewhat socialized healthcare base. Basically, you basic single payer plan would cover the necessities. If you want, you can purchase a private plan as an add on/alternate insurance that would cover more or perhaps allow for more freedom in treatment options.

I'm not sure how good of an example that is. The nuances of health insurance are not one of my strong points.

We got such a system here in Germany. Essentially, your standard public health insurance pays for everything that is necessary to get you healthy again. There are a few co-pays, but they're not that dramatic, and capped at 2% of your yearly income, or 1% for the chronically ill.

What private insurance brings to the table is things like single or two bed rooms in a hospital (standard insurance pays for a bed in a 4 to 6 bed room), better dental options (standard health care doesn't pay for dental implants or certain advanced filler materials) and other amenities.

Sadly, some doctors are screening for the type of insurance you got, and while illegal, it still happens frequently that the schedule mysteriously opens up for people with private insurance, while people with public insurance get pushed back and have to wait a few weeks or months for treatment of non-life threatening conditions.

How quick you get that service, the environment you receive that service in, all of that stuff is on the table in the private vs public med experience. Hong Kong has a public health care, but they also have private hospitals. If you have a baby at the public hospital, the husband can't be in the room for the delivery, you're in a section of a room with 6 other beds and certain visitor hours, etc. A C-section followed by 4 days in the hospital costs you about $100 USD (and the government probably $1000 on top of that). The same procedure at a private hospital allows more freedoms, more comfort and privacy for the mother, etc. but costs about $10-12K which is often covered by private insurance. But the private hospitals don't have ICU facilities for babies, so if there's something seriously wrong, your baby is going to have to go to the public hospital anyways. Despite that, most people with means end up having their kid in the private hospital. The two systems can co-exist and it's not rocket science.

You can certainly make conservative-friendly arguments for it if you care to, though.

For example, not being dependent on an employer for your health insurance removes a disincentive for entrepreneurship. American conservatives love the rhetoric of the little guy who took a risk and made it rich through smarts and hard work.

Oh sure. But in order to make those arguments, you first have to explain to your voters how this universal health care system isn't communism, like that universal health care system over there, and how you're not really helping people who can't afford health care by taxing the rich, you're helping businesses increase their earnings...

...or, IOW, you basically have to explain away everything you (as a Republican politician) have been saying for the last thirty, forty years. I'm not saying you couldn't do it...but I am saying it'll have to be a really desperate Republican to get on that bandwagon and risk all the backlash.

I'm 35 and healthy but I know that at some point in my life I won't be. We need universal health care. If a Republican runs on that I'm voting for them because if something happens the bills will go through the roof.

I'm 30. I pay $500-800/month for prescriptions for my mother because she is destitute and would die without them. As you can imagine, I'm for not only single payer, but a non-profit drug company owned by the single payer organization to churn out cheap generics (when able) when permitted by law.

Agreed. Its like the interstate system... I personally have never traveled through Missouri on an interstate.. but I do not have a problem with some of my tax dollars going to support it...Cause.. ya know... its a society...we are supposed to work together...

That seems to be more or less the way that old people tend to be. My grandfather used to tell me to watch FOX, because they were the only ones which got things right. My dad used to be pretty skeptical, but leans further and further to the conservative end as time goes on.

I think it's because they've grown used to the status quo. They've paid taxes, lived, raised kids, and had jobs under the status quo for so long that they don't want to change it out of fear of breaking it. That's effectively what the "conservative" party stands for. No matter how broken the system is, it still works and we're still the most influential, powerful, and rich nation on the planet (no sarcasm, we really are).

The ACA didn't address the real underlying problem: we have absolutely no idea what medical care costs. There needs to be some sort of market based standardization so that we don't end up with $20 niacin tablets and procedures that cost tens of thousands more in one state than in another. And someone please explain to me why insurance companies can't compete interstate? That's the exact opposite of free market capitalism.

You know how credit card companies "compete interstate"? They all get done out of Delaware, because Delaware is the absolute friendliest state to them. Letting health insurance compete across state lines will mean that health insurance companies will pull up stakes in 49 states and go to the 1 state where legislators pass the fewest regulations.

I watched a Republican Representative talk today, and his main complaint was that the plan is too complicated and convoluted. He was on and on about sending bills to different agencies (state and federal) and to insurance companies. It's a "Rube Goldberg system". The whole thing needed to be boiled down to one place to send the bill.

When asked, he thought that was the worst thing he could mention about Obamacare.

Some one I know recently asked Sen. Ted Cruz's office if he accepted the government run health care offered to the senators and representatives. She pointed out that he had private health care before taking office and wanted to know if he discontinued that insurance in order to take the government issued insurance for the capitol hill employees. When his staffer said yes she said "Then why is he currently on TV saying that government run health care isn't a good system and that government should stay out of people's health care?". The staffer hung up on her.

My answer: Take the 2 trillion dollars spent on afganistan and Iraq and give all americans free healthcare for life

Its unbelieveable that the richest country in the world with one of the best gdp per capita and the highest tax earnings of any country can't afford to provide quality healthcare to its own citizens.

Why on earth do americans even pay taxes? Health care should be on the top of the list of things that taxes are used to pay for, not to pay for another country to be bombed.

Seriously if you really cared about 'protecting' the american people you would focus on healthcare, that would save millions of lives and result in increased productivity in the workforce and actually would net MORE tax revenue

The real issue is that they rather prefer the ACA to be supported by a Republican president, rather than a Democratic president. They're simply opposed to the bill because it came from the wrong political party.

Well last I heard Obama was the ultimate Communist Fascist, and his reviews like other almost scientific theorems criticising Obamacare, usually were condensed to the two-word kernel "BECAUSE SOCIULISM".

Yeah, here in Europe universal health care isn't that rare, so we were kind of surprised so much oppression was raised against it. I bet Newt smells that the Repubs aren't going to put the genie back in the bottle, so he might as well reap some of the rewards he utterly doesn't deserve.

I saw him in person when he was campaigning in SC. There was a lot of Newt in that very well tailored suit. Money can help minimize the visual impact, but he was huge. Also, Calista never let him out of sight.

FUCK YOU CONGRESS WE NEED UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE. this has all been a giant waste of time and effort and we Still are beholden to greedy fucked insurance companies that are for profit in an industry that SHOULD NOT BE FOR-PROFIT.

Sorry my caps lock went crazy. I've just spent the last ten years watching my sister in law lose both parents to cancer - her dad went fast and her mom is going slowly. And the shit has ruined them - and they are/were insured.

What I have heard Newt Gingrich said back in 1993, but I cannot find a direct quote source, is that he said that the Democrats passed Social Security and as a result held power for 50 years. If they pass Universal Health Care they will secure power for another 50.

This is why the Republicans are fighting it. They know that it will work, that people will benefit from it, and they will vote for those who gave it to them.

That's rich considering the Newt said the exact opposite thing when running for president. The fact of the matter is that Gingrich is a huge shill, pretty much invented modern day money-politics, and made 50 million dollars forwarding the agendas of healthcare corporations through his Center for Healthcare Transformation. He ran this center after resigning as speaker, and marketed himself as a 'consultant' with political influence. He was basically a very powerful lobbyist with a thorough knowledge of all lobbying loopholes (he even had headquarters on K St, which is the Wall St of lobbying). He helped get a massive 25 billion dollar subsidy for electronic health records into the 2009 stimulus. Electronic health records are a good thing, but whether or not they were mature enough to be implemented is debatable. The stimulus pretty much forced health providers to buy them, at a greatly inflated cost. Many parties stood to benefit from these subsidies, namely the EHR vendors, and they paid Newt a lot of money to make their dreams come true.

Anyway, EHRs got sorted, Newt made bank - and then promptly filed for bankruptcy before running for president, even though his Center for Healthcare Transformation was extraordinarily lucrative.

Inconveniently, the healthcare proposals made by Newt were at odds with the beliefs of the crazy GOP base he had to appeal to. Newt's presidential bid failed and now I guess he is back in the HC game. Newt is right, the GOP doesn't have a good, cohesive alternative to Obamacare. But I am positive that Newt supports a mandate now because insurance companies profit from increasing their customer base. Whatever republicans say, Obamacare takes the most fucked up HC payment system in the world and makes it a little bit better for consumers (us),insurance companies and providers.

We should have universal HC, or as some have proposed, free market HC. None of this third-party-payment system. Certain elements make huge profits off of this and pay crooks like Newt Gingrich to maintain the status quo or something more profitable (Obamacare). We, the people see the pinch. Hope you're all insured!

Tort reform has been tried in several states (e.g., Texas), but hasn't made a dent in healthcare costs. I don't mind conservatives making that argument, but it's always in their first three healthcare proposals when it should be thirtieth. The big savings just aren't there.

Notice his biggest complaint is the effect the anti health care dirge is having on voters, not the effect unaffordable health care is having on the less well insured. Typical self serving hogwash from a pious philanderer who divorced his first wife while she was on her deathbed so he could marry his harlot. He also helped impeach Clinton while he was breaking his marriage vows with his church going mistress Calista, the woman with the cement hairdo.